Writer: JILL N. KANDEL Photographer: CLASSiC Photography
A Fargo First
Dawn Stollenwerk:
A fiesty female firefighter! Fire control has had a long and interesting history in Fargo, beginning in 1877 when the first fire ordinance was passed. The city purchased a hook and ladder rig that year; a team of horses, “Major” and “Edwards,” were purchased ten years later. In 1889, the fire department lost their first fire fighter in the line of duty: Joseph Hoefer. A few years later, the Great Fargo Fire of 1893 destroyed 160 acres and caused five million dollars in damage. By 1900, the Fargo Fire Department purchased its first chemical engine, but it wasn’t until nearly one hundred years later, in 2009, that the Fargo Fire Department hired its first, and only, female firefighter. Dawn Stollenwerk grew up hearing about fires and emergency work from her parents, Kathy Carbno and Steve Carbno. “Steve is the director of the Salvation Army Disaster Services,” Stollenwerk said, “and both he and my mom are EMTs. When I finished college and was looking for a job, Fargo Fire was hiring. I thought I would like that. I was intrigued, but at that time I wasn’t prepared to apply.” Instead, Stollenwerk applied for a job and was hired to work as a correctional officer at the Clay County Jail. “I did court transportation for five years. And during those years I started to get ready to apply for the fire department.” The first time Stollenwerk applied, in about 2005, she didn’t pass the physical agility section: hose roll, hose drag, ladder raise, dummy drag, floor joist crawl, and moving a beam with a sledge hammer. The second time she applied and was tested, she passed the written section, but her score was not high enough for her to move on. By the time Stollenwerk was ready for a third testing, she was thirty years old. She thought to herself, “If I don’t pass, I’ll stop trying.” She passed the written section and moved on to the physical. “That day I wasn’t up to par and didn’t pass the ladder raise portion of the test, and I told myself, ‘I’m done.’” Eight weeks later, Stollenwerk saw in the newspaper that the fire department was hiring again. Many people would have been daunted by three failures. But Stollenwerk wasn’t. Each time she didn’t pass, she focused on strengthening her weak area. The first time, her focus was on increasing her cardio work, the second time on studying for the written exam, the third time she worked on her grip and lat pull down exercises. Stollenwerk felt that seeing that ad in the newspaper was a sign. “After I saw that ad,” she said, “I began going to the gym and working really hard.” Stollenwerk tried one more time and passed both the written and the physical sections. An interview, drug test, background check, and polygraph test followed. Stollenwerk passed. After years of hard work and determination, she was offered a job at the Fargo Fire Department and became Fargo’s first female fire fighter in the fall of 2009.
AW |
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